Page:Magdalen by J S Machar.pdf/56

 arise in it; disconsolate melodies stir its very depths. It would gladly fly out of the heavy fetters of its body, away from this beclouded earth, higher, higher, somewhere into the ether, beyond the darkling heavens

These moments Lucy was passing alone in her room. On the round table before her lay a book, nearby, some needle-work; perchance both had occupied her since noon. She was sitting with her hands folded in her lap. A lamp with a colored shade stood at the edge of the table, and threw a faint light upon her profile.

Her bewildered eyes scanned the paper on the opposite wall. At times she closed them, and she sighed, as if exhausted from thinking; at others, again, she softly turned her head, as if answering her own questions. For two or three days she had been thus inwardly agitated. It seemed to her that some illness was overpowering her. The nerves of her head were strained. She